


Nightmares and Daydreams

by chaWOOPa



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Temporary Character Death, taako is a sad boi and and he loves his family a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 23:54:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13624149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaWOOPa/pseuds/chaWOOPa
Summary: The darkness shifts and swallows their fallen friend and a new person steps up to take her place. Small, sure, determined, and Taako’s heart breaks because Angus shouldn’t have to face down this darkness when it was never his fight. Not without Taako by his side. Not at all.Kravitz takes a stand at his side and Taako feels the darkness push towards them all harder.





	Nightmares and Daydreams

Taako knows he is safe here. He is safe and warm and he is surrounded by the bodies of the people he loves most in all realities and he is hovering somewhere between sleeping and waking and he is  _ safe _ . He is  _ safe safe safe safe  _ and yet... behind his eyelids as he sinks deeper towards sleep he can see darkness so complete that it threatens to swallow him whole and in this darkness there are flashes of colors, of red and green and yellow and blue and  _ and and _ -

 

* * *

 

Taako is watching, bound but not gagged, as his family fights back a darkness so unfathomable his eyes cannot quite comprehend it. Each blow that they land sends light shooting through briefly, but there is too much darkness. Lucretia falls first and a whimper fights its way out of Taako’s throat as emotions he doesn’t want to face tear their way through his chest. None of them are satisfaction.

 

The darkness shifts and swallows their fallen friend and a new person steps up to take her place. Small, sure, determined, and Taako’s heart breaks because Angus shouldn’t have to face down this darkness when it was never his fight. Not without Taako by his side. Not at all. 

 

Kravitz takes a stand at his side and Taako feels the darkness push towards them all harder.

 

Davenport falls next and Taako can’t even call out as the darkness takes the only father he had ever had. Merle goes shortly after and that one rips another whimper as he watches his ( _ best friend? Father? Uncle? He never really got to talk to Merle about what they were and that is what stings the most as his limp body is pulled hungrily into the darkness _ ).

 

He watches as, one by one, his family dwindles and he can do nothing to stop it. Barry and Lup go out one after the other, barely a second apart as they run out of spells to use and instead reach for each other’s hands in their last moment. He is weeping openly as his sister closes her eyes and lets the darkness,  _ the Hunger,  _ overwhelm her finally. 

 

Kravitz falls taking a blow for Angus and Taako screams. 

 

He pulls against his bindings as Angus trembles and faces down a wall of darkness, the only thing between Kravitz’s body and the Hunger. His voice shakes as he speaks, but his message and his hand on his small wand ( _ Taako remembers repairing that wand lovingly and carefully after one disastrous magic lesson and his heart clenches _ ) was steadier than he had ever seen it before. “I will not let you take him, Taako.”

 

Something shifts and suddenly Taako’s body is not his own and he is looking down on the scene from before, saying something he doesn’t quite understand but makes Angus wince. Angus takes a deep breath and casts a spell he has no business knowing at the level he is at, and Taako feels himself laugh before raising a hand. 

 

He knows what is coming before it happens and he starts fighting against it, screaming and thrashing and fighting but it is futile as he watches a ray of light shoot straight at his beautiful magic boy-

 

* * *

 

Taako wakes to someone’s arms around his middle and another someone shushing him and running their hand down his face. He is disoriented for a minute as he tries to remember where he is, and the cool arms around his middle help to ground him in the moment as his eyes start to focus on the woman in front of him. 

 

She is elven with soft brown hair dyed a red ombre at the tips and she has his same eye colors (one blue and one purple). She has his nose and his lips, his eyebrows and cheekbones. She is his sister, his twin Lup and as soon as he comes to this realization he surges forward into her arms, breathing hard and heartbeat fast. She will know what happened, she always does, always has. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registers the loss of contact with the cool person from behind him and he whimpers, pulling back just enough to look behind him and confirm that Kravitz was there and, well, as alive as he could be. 

 

Barry is standing at the end of the bed with a tray of steaming mugs and Taako isn’t quite ready to use words, but he knows there is a much better place for Barry to be at the moment so he settles for glaring at the tray with one arm around Lup and the other locked with Kravitz’s hand until Barry gets the hint. He is not ready for words to come out of his mouth, not right now, but Barry will catch on eventually.

 

It doesn’t take long for Barry to chuckle and set the tray on a dresser before climbing onto the bed behind Lup and settling in behind Taako. Taako leans back into Barry and all four of them end up in something resembling a dogpile with Taako in the middle. 

 

It doesn’t fix Taako’s dream, but it makes it better, grounds him in reality and helps him remember that everything is okay. 

 

Things aren’t perfect, far from it, really. Taako isn’t okay and that is something he will have to confront eventually, but for now he is okay. He is okay. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hi my name is ryley and if you want to come scream about how taako has ptsd something fierce (all of the ipre and their friends, really, but anyway) find me at lupcult.tumblr.com <3


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